SeaWorld Lobbying Delays California Effort to Ban Orcas

SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. (SEAS) won a
round in its fight to keep killer whale shows in California,
with a lobbying campaign that raised doubts about claims that
the animals are harmed in its parks.

In the month since a ban on keeping orcas in captivity was
proposed, SeaWorld raced to head off the measure. Company
lobbyists met with members of the state Assembly’s Water, Parks
and Wildlife Committee to challenge assertions by animal-rights
activists. The panel decided yesterday to study the matter,
putting off a vote for at least a year.

“The most compelling argument in our discussions with
members is that there’s not one piece of recognized research
that keeping whales in captivity is deleterious to their health
and welfare,” said Scott Wetch, a veteran California lobbyist
hired by Orlando, Florida-based SeaWorld.

Releasing the whales or placing them in an ocean enclosure,
as the measure seeks, would “lead to almost certain death,”
Wetch testified. SeaWorld would simply move its animals from San
Diego, he said. In addition, the company would view the ban as a
property seizure and seek hundreds of millions of dollars in
restitution from the state.

“The bill was laughable in its lack of sophistication,”
Wetch said.

The measure’s rapid progress after its introduction by
Assemblyman Richard Bloom, a Santa Monica Democrat, forced both
sides to move fast. SeaWorld lined up support from
veterinarians, the California Association of Zoos & Aquariums
and the California Retailers Association to underscore the
impact on research and the local economy.

On Defense

That put supporters on defense.

“We had a very short time period to educate the committee
members,” said Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist with the
Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute, which backed the
bill.

When meeting with legislators to discuss the bill this
week, Rose said her team bumped into representatives of SeaWorld
who were distributing a 32-page rebuttal of “Blackfish,” the
2013 CNN documentary that criticized the theme-park operator and
prompted the legislation.

The panel’s study will delay a vote until mid-2015, said
Anthony Rendon, a Democrat from Lakewood who chairs the
committee and said he supports the ban.

“It was just a matter of the committee wanting to be fully
informed,” said Jared Goodman, an attorney in Washington with
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “There’s no
indication it was done to sweep it under the rug.”

The bill would end whale breeding in the state and their
use in entertainment. If enacted, the legislation would force
SeaWorld to close its signature show in San Diego, one of three
company parks in the U.S. with performing killer whales.

Both sides hired lobbying firms to represent them in
Sacramento, with proponents of the orca ban working with Mercury
Public Affairs, which bills itself as handling “high-stakes
public strategy.” SeaWorld hired Wetch, described by the Los
Angeles Times as “blunt, shrewd and intimidating” in a 2012
profile.

“If you ban them, you buy them,” Wetch told legislators
at the hearing, referring to the whales.

Blackstone, the New York-based private equity firm, bought
SeaWorld from Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI) for $2.3 billion. It has
been reducing its stake since a public offering of shares in the
theme-park company last year.